Tania James - Atlas of Unknowns

She arrives at Miss Schimpf’s office to find Fish already there, seated by the wall. Her reaction is one of pure elation, a smile that she cannot supress. She hardly notices, at first, that he is staring intently at his sneakers, his hands cupped together as though to trap something between them. The next person she notices is Principal Mitchell, who stands beside Miss Schimpf’s desk, his arms crossed over his chest. Miss Schimpf looks up with an expression of profound sadness.

And now the significance of this meeting settles over Anju in a gentle gust. Slightly dazed, she hovers in the doorway and wonders, absently, whether she could go get her Ace bandage from her locker.

Principal Mitchell tells her to come in and have a seat. Usually he calls every student by last name, preceded by Miss or Mr., but now he calls her Anju, a foreboding intimacy. The door falls shut, gentle as a pat on the back.

“Anju, we called you in here because we have some serious things to discuss, in particular about your artwork.” Principal Mitchell pauses, as if waiting for her to begin the discussion herself. “I have to ask you: Did you do those paintings yourself?”

From her throat comes a voice that she does not recognize as her own. “Paintings?”

“Yup. Did you paint them?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you have help?” Miss Schimpf asks.

“No, miss.”

“Oh, no need for ‘miss’ and ‘sir,’” Principal Mitchell says. “We’re just here to have a chat.”

A chat. Again, that cozy, fireside language. There is nothing cozy about the way Fish refuses to release his hands and look at her.

Noting her glance, Principal Mitchell calls on Fish, as if they are discussing a poem or a play and little else. “Mr. Fischer? Would you like to say something?”

The noise that comes from Fish’s mouth is barely a croak. He clears his throat. “She told me her sister did them.”

Anju sits very still, while inside her heart falls and falls.

Principal Mitchell leans against Miss Schimpf’s desk. “Anju, is this true?”

She does not answer.

When Miss Schimpf addresses Anju, her voice is dulcet, deceptively so. “Anju, what’s your sister’s name?”

It is cruel, the way they know things that they are pretending not to know. Anju does not answer, not out of obstinacy, but because she simply has no voice.

Miss Schimpf rises and holds up the tailor’s painting, which, unbeknownst to Anju, has been spread on the desk all this time. With her finger, without touching the paper, Miss Schimpf traces a looping vine in the corner of the painting. A single gold bell hangs from her bangle, tinkling childishly. When she removes her hand, the word lifts, like a scent, from the page.

Linno .

There is a rarefied silence, of a stillness and weight that occur before an avalanche.

Anju’s hand goes to her mouth, and with that singular motion she surrenders. How did she never notice? From far away, she hears Principal Mitchell beginning to talk about consequences, about the Honor Code, about violation, words that for now do little more than draw a thick, distinct line that separates her from them. Her mind reels forward through the oncoming days, when she will be asked to return the money, now in official, unknown hands. She feels herself growing light, dissolving, or perhaps it is the world that is dissolving all around her.

UTSIDE, the sounds of dawn: the swish-gargle-spit of Amma-chi’s saltwater ablutions, the clunk of a heavy pail set on stone. Melvin lies in bed, listening. He should be up already. He should be brushing his teeth and taming the sharp, disheveled fin of his hair, but he feels weighted to the bed, his nightmares pinning his stomach to the mattress. And again, that sense of impending wrongness, which he will not mention to his mother for fear of her antidotes.

He has this dream every so often. In it, Linno is seven years old, the age that she was when he left her behind in Kumarakom. She is wearing red ribbons at the ends of her plaited braids. He is following her down strange, labyrinthian corridors, imploring her to wait for him. Around every corner, she gathers speed, until she is running, then racing, her head a comet, her braids flaming behind her and blizzarding sparks that make him recoil with the knowledge that he is being left behind, always, by everyone. He feels childish, furious, his fatherly words turned desperate and ugly, calling her an idiot, a useless, stupid girl. Go then, if you want to go. Go and don’t come back. She turns and, with the rippling nature of dreams, becomes a woman he knows, then one he doesn’t, then one that may be his wife. She is crying.

Dreams are not the best place from which to draw messages, and the significance of this one, so heavy in the morning, will lighten with every passing hour. The regret that now throbs at the thought of Linno will disappear when he sees her at breakfast, picking her teeth. The day will grow harmless, and by afternoon he will forget everything. But there is only minor comfort in forgetfulness because nothing is completely forgotten, only tucked away in some other part of the brain to later betray him at synaptic speed.

AFTER ANOTHER BEDRIDDEN MINUTE, he hears the phone ring, an unlikely sound for so early in the morning. It must be Anju, a thought that brings him comfort. She has not called in twelve days, nor did she return Melvin’s last call. Ammachi wanted to phone her again, but Melvin insisted that Anju was probably busy with schoolwork and the green card application. They would wait until tomorrow.

He hurries out of bed and into the sitting room, trying to smooth his hair on the way. Picking up the phone, he greets a vaguely familiar voice: “Hello? Mr. Vallara?”

After a moment’s delay, he cries out, “Oh! Hallome! Miss Shiv!”

Miss Schimpf has called twice before, and each time, Melvin has regressed into his teenage self by uttering this same overly enthusiastic exclamation. Not because he finds her attractive, but because he finds her to be a person of considerable power, possessing a confident, feminine tone that fills him with well-being. Once a month, she calls with an “update,” which seems like a waste of a phone card, though he feels privileged that she thinks him important enough to receive her call. Usually, she stretches each syllable so that he can understand her messages of progress — that Anju is excelling in all her classes, that Anju is making friends. This time, however, he can barely follow her rapid-fire English. He understands that something has happened, but that something remains on a lingual shelf too high for him to reach.

Linno appears in the doorway just as Melvin catches the words “remain calm.” He sees his own expression, the opposite of calm, reflected in the way Linno is watching him. When she takes the phone, the last word he hears clearly is “missing.”

“It’s that Miss Shiv from Anju’s school,” Melvin whispers.

Linno wastes no time on introductions. “Hello, yes?”

Melvin stands aside, thinking that there must be a word after “missing” that he did not grasp. Anju has missed a class. Anju is missing home. “Missing” is a chameleonic word, its darker possibilities easily reversed with the right, benign context. So by the time Linno says aloud, “Anju is missing?” it is enough for Melvin to ask frantically, “What? Missing what?” while knowing the answer. It is enough to have the wind knocked out of his chest, enough to tumble him back into his nightmare, to wonder if he mistook the girl with the fiery braids. His voice barely a whisper, he calls his daughter’s name.